Silver Hands of Time
by Yuki-Infel
Summary: After Ergo Project incident was blown up and known to the upper echelon of the government, the only living witness entered National Police Agency's protection and changed his identity, moving on from the night that sent a city ablaze with a teacher who signed adoption papers that named him Kashihara Minato. Very AU. Knowledge of Persona 2 not required.
1. Whitewash

**Silver Hands of Time**

Author Notes:

Persona 2 and Persona 3 belong to Atlus and I made no profit from writing this fic. You don't have to play P2 to understand the story because this fic will be very AU and therefore will be ooc in a few places so please work with me. And there's fem!Jun x Tatsuya since I'm planning to do something for this ship. I decided to write the opening chapter first to see if anyone's interested, so enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **Whitewash**

The first time she saw the boy's quicksilver eyes, she saw darkness.

An all-consuming silence that encompassed such tiny body has been a talk amongst her fiancee's co-workers. Most families whom NPA assigned the boy to found him to be a handful. The boy was too quiet, too haunted and too detached from reality that the nights where he was lucid enough to talk were filled with incessant tremor that ran through his whole body.

"No one wanted him," Tatsuya confessed with a quiet tone, offering a standard office mug filled to the brim with non-sugared coffee with his coarse, rough hands. The National Police Agency's young officer of Safety Division's room was small, but provided enough room for both of them.

She was silent, lips painted with a tight smile.

She wouldn't say that she understood the orphaned boy's situation. After all, she grew up in a warm, loving family with a gentle history teacher as a father and a mother who cooked dinner everyday despite being a busy, famous actress. She remembered being lonely during her childhood, though. It was about the time when Kashihara Junko's career soared for the first time, but her friends and kind father were there, asking her to play with them, with her father teaching her astrology, introducing her to the world of books and listening to her playing her mother's favourite classical pieces.

The boy had nothing.

"It's his fifth foster home, Jun. We're ready to give up and throw his case to an orphanage." Her russet-haired childhood friend turned fiancee said tiredly and finished his piping hot coffee in one gulp.

A part of her wanted to take away Tatsuya's burden, to make him breath easier because of her presence. After all, that's what a wife would've done, right?

Jun twirled her long, dark hair and replied thoughtfully, imagining a life of being passed around by people who didn't want him. "Perhaps this is presumptuous of me-" She said, tucking her bangs to her right ear. "-but how unusual is it for a child to be placed in multiple foster homes?"

Tatsuya arched a brow but continued in a serious note,"It's hard for me to explain... but you should see the boy. He was placed under Dr. Sonomura's care for now."

Something like surprise crossed over her delicate features, "Is it really that bad?"

Her fiancee's chocolate-coloured eyes closed shut and he shook his head.

* * *

Jun glanced around the wide, tidy office. The walls were painted in pastel colours which were pleasing to the eyes and it looked more like a relaxation room rather than a psychiatrist's office. The room looked homey, with photographs immortalized in wooden frames littered the walls and a painting lounge on the other side of the room that faced two tall French windows that fitted in from the floor to the ceiling. Finally, her auburn eyes rested on a woman who looked like she had a few years ahead of them. Her sharp cheekbones jutted out when she smiled to greet them, a beauty mark on the edge of her mouth quirked up along with her laugh line.

Dr. Sonomura's hair was styled in a simple, boyish bob that left little to imagination that complimented light brown hair. The woman's amber eyes lit up in recognition and she shook Tatsuya's hands like an acquaintance.

"Ah, you must be from NPA, right? On the Ergo Project case?"

The officer took out his badge and showed it to the resident psychiatrist, "Yes. My name is Suou Tatsuya from NPA's Safety Division."

"Sonomura Maki. Glad to meet you,"

"I'm Kashihara Jun, his fiancee." She said as she clasped the older woman's soft hands. The doctor gave a puzzled look to Tatsuya and he understood.

He nodded to Jun's direction, "Jun is a civilian, but she's trustworthy, doctor. I can vouch for her."

Dr. Sonomura scrutinized Jun, looking over her up and down and as if she has passed some sort of impromptu test, the doctor nodded her consent, "You have to sign Confidentiality Agreement either way, Ms. Kashihara." Dr. Sonomura said as she welcomed the couple inside the quaint room.

As they seated, the doctor moved to a small pantry and made tea. "How's the key witness?"

"He only got worser after he gave his oral testimony about Kirijo Corp.'s accident, officer. Although his testimony proved the Defendant's guilt, the responsible party was wiped out that night so there's no one to punish. There's also a problem with the lack of evidence."

"It's strange... considering the scale of the accident." Jun said as she recalled the thick bundle of the case report. A city sent ablaze in one night, deaths of the country's well-known researchers and a boy that became the leftover of the accident.

"At this point I won't be surprised if his defense mechanism would try to whitewash the accident completely. He's... hallucinating, officer. It's never a good sign on any of my caseload." The doctor said with her mouth set in a thin line, brows creasing.

"What will happen to him, then? Now that he had testified?" Jun voiced out her concern, looking down to her lap as an odd feeling laden with anxiety settled on her stomach. She missed a shadow that passed over Dr. Sonomura's face.

"The law..." She paused for a moment to gather herself. "In front of the law's eyes, the boy has served his purpose."

She added bitterly, "He might be placed in an orphanage and the system will wash their hands off him."

Ice crawled around Jun's chest, its vice-like grip was cold against the prickling pain. She understood being neglected for half of her childhood, but this...

Something like this shouldn't happen to anyone.


	2. Makoto Yūki

**Chapter 2**

 **Makoto Yūki**

It was near midnight when they finished talking and for Tatsuya to collect the boy's profile from Dr. Sonomura. He took a look of the boy's face. Cropped dark blue hair, apparently cut haphazardly with a shard of glass framed a small, angular face. A closer look made the dull, deadened silver eyes stood out against his darker hair.

"You can take his profile home if you want, but please burn it after you memorize the data because the case is still ongoing and therefore made it confidential." The light brown-haired older woman suggested and she tucked a stray tuft of hair away as the doctor glanced up at the waxing moon visible from the french windows.

She frowned, "It's near the time of his hallucination. Sorry, I should return home and looked after the boy." Dr. Sonomura packed what little belongings she had and the couple excused themselves from the clinic.

"What happened during that time?" Jun ascertained as the three walked in the empty hallway to the car port.

The doctor massaged the bridge of her nose, "He screamed. Please, not now. I'm very tired."

Jun's concerned face made her fiancee promised the doctor for another appointment the very next day. And Dr. Sonomura agreed, giving them her home clinic's address. "You two should come after my working hour, officer. I can explain his situation better if you see him for yourself."

* * *

It would have been better if the doctor shouted and slapped him, like everyone else.

When they shouted, at least he knew that he has to hide, curling up in the tiled floor and skipping breakfast, lunch and dinner before they let him out.

Those black blobs screeched and screamed, too. But he was the only one who can see and hear them, not when everyone turned into coffins bigger and taller than himself. Not when the moon turned into a sickly green and he couldn't drink anything as the water turned bloody red after he became tired of screaming and hiding his small stature away from those malevolent beasts.

They never leave him alone. Wouldn't leave him alone.

But when he opened his eyes, the dim lighting returned and he saw what was left of the bedroom that those beasts wrecked has became an empty battlefield. Then, the tremor wouldn't stop and he heard the dark, soothing voice of his guardian angel that he wondered if everyone else was right and he was just a delusional liar.

He stopped trying to explain the cracked windows and scratch marks on the walls after the third house (not home) he was entrusted to locked him up in the dirty, grimy bathroom after they saw the wrecked living room which became his sleeping quarter. When he heard distraught pacing and annoyed phone calls asking for the Children's Services to take him back, he knew that it was time for him to leave.

And true to his guess, the case worker from the Children's Service accompanied by several uniformed men arrived the next day, placing their stiff hands on his shoulder and hauling him to a place where its faceless occupants would welcome him with open arms and received the money for his temporary care.

But the doctor was confusing.

Instead, she shushed the boy and the trembling stopped. She whispered things he didn't understand and tucked him back to the soft blanket while he was left to deal with a gaping, distrusting void that swallowed the boy whole. The display of gentleness was suffocating. It was unreal.

Because no one is kind and no one who is kind is real.

Tonight, too. When she arrived from work and saw the cotton filling of his pillows was dispersed in the scratched rug, she just sighed tiredly and massaged the bridge of her nose. He didn't understand, but Dr. Sonomura wiped his sweaty forehead and painted quietly on her blank, white canvas beside his bed until he succumbed to sleep. The doctor whispered his real name, like a confidential secret it was and he was too drowsy to say another reply.

All was quiet.

* * *

The next night, she heard the sound of an engine being turned off in front of her home clinic. The woman in her twenties stretched her back and stood up from the sofa. Maki prepared the tray of tea in the pantry as she smiled, remembering that it was the tray that the boy chose the first time they went out to shop together. It was the only tea set that managed to avoid getting destroyed amidst the boy's increasing hallucination.

Maki has started administering sleeping aid in his medication with measured dose, knowing that the boy truly needed some semblance of rest. Two dark bags has started to form under the boy's beautiful grey eyes and there were lines of stress on such a young child's face. It scarred her, and she has to remind herself that the years behind her experience were nothing for naught, lest Maki had nothing else to back her up.

The bell rung melodically and she took a deep breath, gathering herself for another not-so-lighthearted talk they were going to have. She walked to the door, passing the boy's bedroom and was glad to find that he slept without a fitful of scream. Here it is.

"Hi, welcome to my home clinic... Officer, Ms. Kashihara," Maki greeted and ushered her guests to the warmer living room, serving them the tea she prepared before.

Suou-san helped his fiancee to take off her coat and the young, beautiful woman smiled in thanks. It made Maki wondered why a couple who was about to get married so interested in a traumatized boy. A bitter, skeptical thought flitted in her head, that the boy might end up as a charity case. She had seen a lot of things in her line of work and it was a common occurrence enough that it only left disasters in its wake.

Maki was a hardened veteran, but the boy was not.

"Can we see him?" the dark-haired young woman asked, hands clasped in front of her chest.

"O-oh, okay, sure. Sorry for spacing out," she covered with a small smile and led the two to the boy's room. For now, the higher-ups decided to entrust the key witness to a psychiatrist capable enough to handle him, but the verdict that sealed the boy's fate would still be in their hands until a family stepped up to adopt him.

Maki opened the polished wooden door quietly and the couple followed behind her, so as not to startle the boy with a stranger's appearance. The small bedroom was shrouded in complete darkness and Maki lit up the sleeping lamp, bathing the room in a golden light.

She stayed in the doorway, observing with keen eyes to the couple that approached his bed.

"...He's so small, Tatsuya,"

"I know, but he looked like you a lot."

"Are you sure?"

The young officer nodded with a muted smile and the two shared a look that Maki didn't have a hard time to decipher. They wished to adopt the boy.

Maki signaled for them to leave the boy to rest and talk in the living room.

"So... How unusual is it that he had to go through multiple foster homes?" Ms. Kashihara opened the talk.

"It's a problem we try to solve. Before him, the most I've ever handled a case being moved was two times. It's damaging for a child to be uprooted, but still, as you can see he has been moved five times."

"Why?" the officer followed up.

Maki swallowed her bitter tone, "Sometimes... It's a matter of neglect, but more than often, it was because the foster parents do not wish to continue caring for the child any longer. In my previous case, the damage was already done and the case just drifted through the system and disappeared after the child reached 18."

"That's fucked up," he swore and Maki smiled, her expression was closed off. "It is, but it's reality."

"Then... what kind of damage they would show?" Ms. Kashihara queried as she touched her fiancee's hand, comforting.

Maki shrugged and sipped her tea, "Children who experienced things like that... They're not stupid. On the other hand, they seemed to show above-average intelligence. When they see everyone else lives with a comfortable, loving family, the first thing that was internalized in their mind is that..."

"...Something about them is wrong and unwanted," the young woman finished her line, surprising Maki.

Maki chuckled with a mirthless laugh, "Yeah, they typically became too silent and withdrawn to avoid getting too attached, or became superficially extroverted to compensate. We were lucky that the boy fell into the first category,"

"Huh, why being extremely outgoing a problem?"

She finished her tea. "Because then, I know that the child was beyond salvageable."

* * *

 **Author Note:**

 **I'm not sorry. Please tell me what you think and thanks for reading this story!^^**


	3. Baby Steps

**Chapter 3**

 **Baby Steps**

"Tatsuya, stop that."

The older man's knee bounced up and down continuously, making _'tap, tap'_ rhythm against the clean, porcelain floor of Dr. Sonomura's home clinic. His fiancee landed a warning, but gentle hand to stop his erratic motion and she found purchase on the slightly tanned man's suit.

He chanced a nervous smile to his to-be wife and found comfort as Jun's chastising hand traveled to his necktie, fixing the half-windsor knot with an indulgent smile of her own.

"I'm not sure if we're-"

"It's not like we've signed the adoption paper, officer."

"What if he doesn't like us?"

"Only if you glare at him."

Tatsuya frowned, doubt gripped him. "...I'm not that scary, right?"

She sighed in surrender, "Seriously? Is this coming from the mouth of someone who used to have his own fan club back in high school?"

The police officer couldn't help the grin that broke out across his young face and he touched his beautiful fiancee's cheekbone, "I only have eyes for you, Kashihara Jun,"

She blushed, a pretty blossom of red shade that contrasted her pale features and he loved the simple fact that he was the cause of it.

Someone coughed and Jun threw up her arms, pretending that their personal bubble didn't exist just now.

Dr. Sonomura laughed, a thin midnight-haired boy who barely looked over nine-years old hiding behind her coat.

"You two, just get married already!"

Tatsuya was the first to recuperate from their embarrassing situation while Jun stuttered and the older woman fawned on her. He lowered himself in front of the boy, crouching to his eye level. The boy's cropped up dark hair was jagged here and there, just like the picture in his profile and Tatsuya made a note to himself to take the boy to a barbershop, if he let them.

Taking a breath, he landed one big, warm hand on top of the child's head and the boy appeared to be startled, but certainly not shaken.

A good start, then.

"Hello, I'm Tatsuya and this-" he gestured to Jun, who smiled in return. "-is Jun. We're planning to see the new aquarium today, do you want to go with us?"

The boy exchanged a glance to Dr. Sonomura, seemingly unsure and retained his silence. Dull silver eyes held the officer's gaze without an ounce of fear and the boy looked as if he was waiting for something. There was a short silence, before the child turned around and asked the psychiatrist about something in a mumbled voice. Jun strained her ears to hear anything from her position beside the doctor, but she couldn't catch anything.

Dr. Sonomura's eyes widen for a fraction of second and changed into bitterness.

Jun was puzzled, "What did he say?"

The young doctor sighed, absent-mindedly patting the boy's head. "He... asked why I didn't give some money for his temporary care to you."

It seemed they had misjudged something.

"Makoto," Dr. Sonomura's voice cracked at the last syllable.

The boy's fingers clenched and unclenched, gripping the end of his black cotton shirt. He was so distracted trying to make himself look smaller, at least until the Children's Service case worker arrived and delivered the money that he didn't notice painted fingers closed in around his shoulder.

Makoto turned his head away and hid behind Dr. Sonomura's pleated skirt.

"Do you know that there'll be a dolphin show in the new aquarium?"

The feminine voice broke through somehow and he, being used to read his caretakers' behaviour, was confused to sense a mixed well of anger and sadness.

To whom?

But it didn't matter, because the man who greeted him first suddenly scooped his small body and picked him up high to the air. Makoto yelped, boyish voice resounded through the home clinic and he held the man's arms to keep himself from falling.

Tatsuya let out a low chuckle and put him between his shoulder, positioning his legs around the sides of his head.

"Much better! Let's go,"

* * *

The new aquarium was two hours drive away from the home clinic and much to the couple's relief, the boy had loosened up somehow, if only a little too unwilling to talk. It was okay, though. They were more than willing to wait.

But what surprised them was the amount of pure gratitude when Jun gave the boy a blue dolphin-shaped sleeping hat in the souvenir shop. The boy wore the hat and tufts of dark hair were lost within the soft fabric.

"Thank you," Makoto mumbled.

The silver slit of his eyes, protected by a thin layer of filament, reflected various shades of emotions that only witnessing it up close was the only way to entrap the moment.

When the three returned to Dr. Sonomura's home clinic, Jun showed the pictures they took to the doctor while Tatsuya hauled the sleeping boy's figure to his room. But when Tatsuya put him in the soft bed, his eyes opened and hazy silver eyes shot up, alert within seconds. The cautiousness surprised Tatsuya, who leaned back to give him some space.

"I'm asleep?" the boy asked groggily.

"...Yep, why don't you sleep more? You're tired, right?" Tatsuya asked and watched as the boy wobbled to keep himself upright, curled up against the wall with a blanket draped around his small body, engulfing him completely.

"What time is it?" he asked as he searched the unlit room for the clock.

Tatsuya checked his phone and looked curiously to the living room where two female voices laughed quietly, "It's late, time for you to sleep,"

Makoto wiped his sleeves across his face to bash the remnants of sleepiness away, mumbling. "I can't sleep,"

"Why?" Tatsuya asked inquisitively and was met by silence. He might've imagined that the boy hid deeper within the blanket, but his psychology lesson during the rigorous one year of police training kicked in and he understood.

Tatsuya wasn't oblivious and it wasn't a tremendous stretch to imagine that being the key witness might've damaged more than what they could see in the surface.

He didn't know exactly what the boy had seen that not even the four hundred-something pages of the case report covered. Hell, even the higher-ups were confused why the local surveillance cameras couldn't catch anything about the cause of something that sent a city ablaze, considering the scale of the accident. Tatsuya couldn't believe for himself that an island-scaled electrical outage would took hold for a moment, only to leave a wrecked bridge and ruins of a school behind.

Even after the Ergo Project case drifted through the justice system for two years, the law force lacked the means to close the case due to the nonexistent evidence and no responsible party to punish, with everyone related to the accident wiped out by the blast. Even in the surface of the society, the secretive nature of the case might lead it to be whitewashed from Japan's history completely. Officially doesn't exist.

Fait accompli.

That was the boy's limit, he guessed and although he felt compelled to push further, he knew that he'd met the same wall again and again. So he retreated, for now.

"I'll let you off the hook if you'll go to dinner with us next week,"

Tatsuya ended up securing the boy's promise for a dinner.

* * *

Within the darkness of Dr. Sonomura's pastel-painted guest room, Makoto laid motionless. His tired silver eyes torn open, observing warily from his curled up position for the creeping black hands and golden eyes that watched him like a malevolent child with its new toy.

Some days -if he hid well enough-, the black blobs would just wander around, circling him without its knowledge. Those days were the worst, leaving him not quite with stressed terror but feeling too wide open and vulnerable.

The nine-years old boy drew his legs closer to the wall and let out a shaky breath, waiting for the sickly green to turn normal as he observed blindly in the darkness. He forced his eyes shut as _something_ moved on the other side of the blood-tainted windows, feeling the start of a numb as he bent his legs tighter.

 _Don't make any noise,_ Makoto clamped his mouth shut with one hand. _Don't make them notice you or they'll destroy the house._ He held his breath. Frayed nerves went haywire and his thoughts flitted in many directions. _Don't cause trouble._

Unguarded, he silently curled in on himself and gripped the dolphin-shaped sleeping hat closer to his chest.

* * *

 **Author Note**

Fait accompli: Something that has already happened or been decided before those affected hear about it, leaving them with no option but to accept.

About Tatsuya's police rank, I do researched about the police education in Japan. Minato was 7 y.o (1999) when the Ergo Project accident happened and he was nine y.o in this chapter (2001). Simply put, the design of this Tatsuya was that he took police examination right after graduating high school and finish the one year police education program (high school graduates undergo a year of police school and college graduates undergo 6 months) so Tatsuya is a newly-minted police officer.

Feel free to correct my mistakes, because I won't grow as a writer without taking any hit here and there^^ Even I'm unsure of what the future chapters would bring. Thanks for reading and tell me what you think :)


	4. Space for Three

**Chapter 4**

 **Space for Three**

Finally, everything was silent around him.

They said that giving a name to something gave it a presence, making it real although Makoto wasn't so sure, with the haunting chuckle of his guardian angel. Its existence was known to him for a long time, a presence of a fragile flicker like an overtaxed body.

Makoto never told anyone because the guardian angel was just the product of an overactive imagination of delusional liar, gone after the clock struck past midnight. But whenever those black blobs approached him and his legs fell asleep with weakness, the guardian angel would touch him through his mind.

It didn't have a name yet, and it was always in a strange state of half-sleep, to let its power being put to rest, Makoto mused. Immobile save for a wide, grinning teeth and armour that draped around itself like a well-worn coat. Its eyes were golden like half-moons against the green, eery backdrop of complete darkness. He could feel that the creature ingrained itself within him, the union nearly parasitic but he didn't mind. Because when the guardian angel stirred and stood on its full height, it hovered over him, over those black blobs and Makoto would be safe.

Sometimes, when it was strong enough to be tangible to naked eyes, Makoto could touch its cold, metallic snout and those grinning teeth. He held up his palm, feeling the patter of that night on its skin. What a sight- something as taller as the support beam of the bridge leaping away, like a gossamer of Death itself throwing everything into chaos and then something moved, dancing in the air to fight it.

He remembered that his own breathing tore through his ears as fire and the smell of burnt bodies played over and over again, before it rushed forth with one great brush of its sword sent its foe hard into the destroyed battlefield.

He reminisced, startled, that he had grinned in response.

But of course, the adults wouldn't believe him. Dismissing it as the product of a scared child. He was scared, when he realized that he lost everyone and everything in one night. But the guardian angel itself wasn't scary at all. Instead, the cool metal covered his small body completely, becoming a thick shell that deflected the screeching of those black blobs.

The chains that connected them were familiar, with each cold snap that brushed the metal coffins were familiar. As if those coffins were simply an extension of himself. And in the weary state of his mind, his guardian angel whispered in his ears, cradling his head and Makoto listened.

 _"_ _You belong to me,"_

And handling over the reins completely seemed as natural as breathing. Giving it to the one who controlled both itself and him.

Makoto closed his eyes and plugged his ears.

"Thanatos."

* * *

Humming quietly to the receiver, he corrected the precarious balance of the phone between his ear and shoulder before turning the pages of a patrol report of his subordinate. Graduating at the top of his police education program's class like his older brother, Tatsuya was quickly offered a position in the NPA Headquarter's Safety Division despite his young age.

 _"_ _I haven't make pressed flower bookmark for ages, Tatsuya. Oh, what if he wouldn't like it? What if it's ugly?"_ a panicked voice said from the other line, accompanied by a loud thump that signaled that his fiancee was browsing through her aisles and aisles of books. Once, she even said that she wanted her own library once they get married and moved out to their new home.

Tatsuya chuckled, making his subordinate older than him by a few years sent him a knowing look. He only gave the man a roll of his eyes, "I'm sure that's fine. He seemed like a brat who'd enjoy reading."

A huff. _"Really? Why do you think so?"_

He finished checking through the report and nodded, signing his name on the spot pointed by his older subordinate and the man left his office. "I would know, because I spent years courting one hell of a bookworm." He heard an embarrassed splutter from Jun and smirked, oh this is getting fun.

 _"_ _Enough,"_ came the whined reply. _"I'm going out, so let's meet up in Dr. Sonomura's home later, okay?"_

Tatsuya moved his head up and down, forgetting that Jun couldn't see his face. "Yep, see you at 7."

Neither said anything after a few seconds, but he waited until Jun gave in first, although she probably knew that he enjoyed teasing her.

The physics teacher mumbled through the receiver. "L-love you,"

Ah, love is in the air. "Love you too,"

* * *

Jun still flushed even minutes after ending their phone conversation and she walked briskly to the shopping district. The September weather was still warm, but the chilling air made her draped more layers of coat. She smelled autumn within the distinct, polluted air of the city, but smiled nonetheless.

The cold was an excuse to gather in front of the furnace. Sharing heat as they talked in low, quiet voices over hot chocolates and old books in Tatsuya's home although both of them weren't fans of sweets that much. It was simply a tradition that carried over from their childhood.

She remembered that Katsuya, Tatsuya's strict but responsible older brother who entered police force years before his brother, would make cakes, wanting to open his own patisserie but choosing to support Tatsuya's study with the higher income of a police.

The petite woman found a flower shop in the tiny corner of the shopping district, just a small shop wedged between its high-fenced neighbors and the automatic door opened for her. Jun hadn't make pressed flower since she was too busy poring over her teaching materials. More importantly, she hasn't done anything for the boy. But it wasn't a mere pity.

They were similar. She and that child.

She knew loneliness when she saw one. But the boy didn't, wouldn't seek to make it known to others. There was a lot more to Makoto than meeting those deadened eyes. Jun saw the boy's faith in humanity failing as those thin arms tightened around his wraith-like figure. It was like seeing a brittle wooden boat with cracks wherever they couldn't see. Water running down thru the side and pooling, drowning everything and nothing into the bottom of a slippery lake.

It was a dangerous stream that no one should've experienced.

Jun's fingers touched the different flowers, mentally recalling the meaning of each flowers, considering which would fit into the boy's small hands. The colour that would suit Makoto the best and the patterned card stock for the bookmark.

Sometimes, she thought that the boy was so colourless that anything would fit him, but soon decided that a white chrysanthemum with a shade closer to the boy's silver eyes was perfect.

 _Truth. Makoto._

She smiled contentedly as she packed her purchase, imagining the silver-eyed child's reaction over the bookmark she'd make.

Jun plucked the petals one by one with a gentle care, the soft contour smooth against her fingers. Old knowledge and experience surging up as her muscle memory guided her. She silently treaded and arranged the petals to fit a thin, plain dark blue card stock artistically. She dipped the tip of a small crafting knife into a bottle of glue and slowly lifted the arranged petals, applying the glue to the card stock.

 _Overlapping, enveloping._

She added some glitter across the medium, index finger and thumb rubbing together to fill up the space and work its magic. Jun finished the piece within minutes and pressed it under her heaviest book to let the glue and petals settled. The pressed bookmark should be ready to be laminated right before they meet up in Dr. Sonomura's house and she was nervous with giddiness.

Would Makoto like it? Does he even like to read?

Jun intertwined her fingers in front of her chest, smiling quietly and heading to her kitchen, preparing for the dinner.

* * *

"Makoto," she said once the aforementioned boy cleaned his plate, the pale-faced boy looked up questioningly, his cheeks smeared with ketchup and sauce. Tatsuya was rummaging the home for a forgotten monopoly board games with every intention to teach the boy. He just nodded passively and helped to clean up the table. He was too quiet that Jun could've missed him if not for his unusual hair colour.

Jun ran the pad of her thumb through his cheeks to wipe off the leftover sauce and pinched, laughing quietly as the boy covered his reddening cheeks. For once, she couldn't think of any reason of why nobody wanted to take care of this adorable boy.

 _What would happen to him if he's left alone to fend for himself?_

It was one question Jun wouldn't dare to voice out loud. Jun remembered Makoto's closed-off smile, distant and untouchable by humanity and she wondered what was happening and slowly, slowly piecing the puzzle together. It was scary to see a child looked as if he could see pass through people's heart.

But she didn't want answer, she just wanted that glint of distrust to disappear.

So, she took out something from her pocket, "I made you something," she presented the handmade bookmark, waiting eagerly for his reaction.

Jun saw it, though. The unbidden surprise in his beautiful eyes and maybe -she hoped it was not- even a twinge of doubt at accepting her gift.

"...Do you like to read?"

Makoto nodded, eyes hidden from view. "Thank you, Jun-san." Came the mumbled reply.

It saddened her, the unwanted realization that Makoto –however way the boy used to be- was reduced into a child that didn't expect something good to happen. Then, a look of pure curiosity passed in his eyes, replacing the doubtful expression.

"Why do you look so sad?" he blurted out.

Jun closed and opened her mouth, alerted by the boy's sharpness. She was reminded of Dr. Sonomura's words, that those who had gone through things like that would be more well-attuned to the emotions of people around them.

She voiced honestly, wondering whether he would believe it or not. "Because I want you to be more used to receive a present."

He stared at Jun, dumbfounded stiffness on Makoto's figure and she wanted him to become more used to something as small as receiving a gift. Later on that night, after Makoto defeated both adults fair and square at monopoly, she couldn't stop thinking about it. About the remembrance that became a part of her current self, that the weight of being loved held a certain gravity. How a small acceptance could change someone's future. Touching someone's reality with the true future that everyone had helped to win. She wanted to do the same for the boy.

If tatsuya wasn't there, if everyone wasn't there-

 _I'll kill you! I'll kill everyone for taking-_

Who?

Sometimes, Jun dreamt of a tainted world festered in destruction. Of a boy who was fated to embrace and be absorbed by his affection into the void.

 _Even if somebody blames you... even if the world is surrounded by foes..._

A lone boy stood behind the deep void, wishing to exact justice upon those who scorned him, his eyes brimming with thrill of power as if he would stand there until the cogs of the world set it right.

 _And a lone person, then another, and everyone joined their hands, unlocking the heart of time together._

Until there was nothing left but a future built upon the bodies of his enemy.

 _The true future bloomed to completion, colouring the world._

Until he became the only shadow left for humanity to eradicate. And-

 _And changing the sorrowful end the story had into a tale of possibility._

* * *

 **Author Note**

Unbeta'ed! Damn ninja-chopping, I'm sweating through my eyes.

I'm experimenting with purple prose, since many books that I've read that used this writing style were beautiful. Thanks for reading and please tell me what you think and where do I have to improve on^^


	5. Lost and Found

**Chapter 5**

 **Lost and Found**

There was an unfamiliar pair of shoes in the doorway, and much to his surprise, it was next to Tatsuya-san and Jun-san's. Makoto sat on the raised wooden platform and took off his black shoes, noting the polished brown business shoes and wondered why the couple came here so early.

There were voices of arguing adults from the living room.

"-Give his custody to us,"

"We'll have to wait for the court's verdict for that, sir."

Makoto froze before the door to the living room. He recognized that voice as Jun-san. He had never heard her speaking with such distress.

A man's voice chuckled, "I'm aware of the process. But considering the future, it's better if he's entrusted to our care. He's been notoriously hard to be placed, right?"

"About that..."

Makoto opened the sliding door, making noise as little as possible. " 'm back," he mumbled.

The adult's surprised eyes looked at him, but they recovered soon as Dr. Sonomura patted an empty seat next to her. Makoto lodged himself between Dr. Sonomura and Jun-san, looking up to find a man wearing a brown three-piece suit, his long hair carefully tied back and long fingers cradling a black eyewear case. Everything stopped for him.

"Makoto-kun! I was looking for you,"

They found him.

 _Ba-thump._

"Do you remember me? I'm Kirijo Group's current Head of Development, Shuji Ikutsuki. Hard to say isn't it? We met in the court, on the first hearing."

 _Ba-thump._

"What does someone from the defendant's side wants by approaching the only witness?" Ignoring the humorous start, Tatsuya replied coldly. His biting remark cut through the tense atmosphere and the man in his early thirties held up a hand, placating.

"Now, now." He chuckled. "We don't mean anything that would affect the case, officer. Regardless of the verdict, we will honor the court's decision. In fact, the Kirijo Group intended to take full responsibility of the damage."

"Full responsibility?" Jun asked incredulously, grounding Makoto to where he stood by placing her gentle hands on his small shoulder.

"Yes," sensing an opportunity, the man wore his glasses and opened a briefcase. "Currently, I'm heading a new project that took in orphaned children caused by the accident, in which Makoto Yuki-kun is also one of them."

Makoto has dreamt of this moment for so long, observing its pattern on the bloodied windows every night ever since he stopped trying to explain the scratch marks and torn rugs of every house he has been placed to. That someone would take him away for causing so much trouble to the adults.

Two years, he repeated to himself. Pulling away and listening to the rain.

"I'm sorry that it took us so long to find him. The first year since the accident hits Kirijo Group the worst. Stocks plummeting, recruiting new human resources, arranging the funerals and asserting the new President. It was chaotic."

Tatsuya-san who had remained motionless spoke, "First, I'd like to know how you tracked him down. The key witness' whereabout is confidential." Tatsuya snarled, defense raised.

"It wasn't easy, if that's what you're wondering about, officer. But our intention is good, so we kept on searching him. We managed to get some information that the Safety Bureau was assigned to guard him. I wasn't surprised, considering that Officer Suou is the top graduate," he smiled politely and Tatsuya nodded stiffly in return.

"Now, there was nothing to directly link you and this clinic aside from the coincidences that you and your fiancee would went out to date a day before each hearings. From there on, I found that you and your fiancee, IFIA's Japanese newest member that has a patent for an orthopedic shoes has been frequenting a psychiatrist clinic." Ikutsuki said, waving his hand towards Jun.

"That's illegal!"

"I presumes that the end justifies the means, Suou-san."

The man called Ikutsuki placed his hands on his lap genially, gesturing to the quiet boy. "Last time I've heard, he's been placed in five different houses. I'm no expert but it'll be damaging in long term, is that so, doctor? We only wishes to take responsibility for any collateral damage we caused."

The silence between them was thick, like tar and toxic waste.

Dr. Sonomura nodded, finding that both sides had it difficult, the victim and the cause. "I understand."

He didn't understand if what he felt was relief or simply resignation after hearing the words of someone who had taken him in far longer than anyone, without questioning the marks that those black blobs left in their wake.

But eventually, they'll part ways sooner or later.

Unexpectedly, Tatsuya glared at her, "Are you agreeing with the defendant's side, doctor?" Makoto didn't know that to do with the sudden onslaught of tension and worry he felt coming from the older man.

 _What is this?_

The psychiatrist only sighed before massaging the bridge of her nose in habit. "You have to hear both sides for a court to run smoothly, Suou-san." She glanced at Jun, who only tightened her grasp on Makoto.

She finished regrettably. "...Both of you are young. Too young for this."

He caused trouble again.

"Please, calm down." Shuji Ikutsuki closed the briefcase and presented a manila folder to Dr. Sonomura. "I believe this should make it clear about Kirijo Group's intention."

Brimming with curiosity, the light brown-haired doctor opened the content and poured it to the coffee table. A magazine with the distinct symbol of Kirijo Group, one familiar to Tatsuya since he has been monitoring the prolonged case, fell from the manila folder. The cover picture of a city was shown.

The Head of Development began, "As we speak, Port Island is being rebuilt at a quick pace. And next year, our current President, Takeharu Kirijo will officially inaugurate Gekkoukan High School in place of the accident site. It is our hope to repent for everything Kirijo Group had done wrong in the past. A blank slate, perhaps?" he chuckled at his own joke and continued, "We've been looking all over the city for the orphans caused by the accident, to support their upbringing and to provide them with education and home. To provide them stability."

He smiled at Makoto, whose mouth was set in a thin line, "You'll have a lot of friends there. You can't maintain this unstable situation forever, right?"

Lost in his confusion, Makoto can only keep his silence, unable to react. "Well, even if you choose not to stay with us, we would like to ensure your health with our top-notch examination technology." Ikutsuki's eyes brighten with scholarly pride, "Oh, it can even reads EEG and ENG!"

He analyzed as fragments of information being collected, thrown away, swapped and finally put into place within those silver eyes, "You're a brain scientist."

"Very good," Ikutsuki said approvingly, nodding. A tiny smile flickered over his face and he observed as the boy eyed him askance.

"You wish to read his brain activity." There wasn't an ounce of question in Dr. Sonomura's voice. "Interesting, I believe I have given my report of his well-being to the Magistrate Council and they had proclaimed that Makoto is fit to be present in the verdict reading."

Ikutsuki sighed, "The purpose of this examination is only to ensure that each orphan affected by the accident is healthy both physically and mentally."

He laid one of his cards on the table, "Do you, perhaps, happen to know about Evoked Potential?"

"That's enough."

Jun's faint voice broke through the crevices, making the rowboat afloat and the black water to recede, escaping from the unseen cracks. Within Makoto, she saw a mere boy on the verge of succumbing to what the Fates had written. But deeper, what she saw was a liar. He can weave a convincing lie like a layer of protective blanket as he told them for something even as insignificant as a 'thank you'. Intelligence is dangerous without something to tether it to reality.

But in the end, a lone human's effort is futile.

So she raised her hands, imperfect and tainted with bad dreams as they were to touch the trembling coldness of someone so _young,_ to trace the patter of the future kissing his skin and it wasn't pretty.

It was wrong; gritted teeth and mouth set into a thin line as his body shivered uncontrollably and silence that encompassed such tiny body and a script he couldn't stray from. Even in her nightmare she knew she wouldn't wish it upon anyone else. A future built upon lies is not the truth, is not peace.

Not even a circle of phantom masks.

* * *

 **Author Note**

IFIA: International Federation of Inventor Association, in which Japan is also one of its members. Canon Jun is an inventor of an orthopedic sandal so I tried to integrate this tiny detail into this fic.

This chapter is like a whole mess of plotplotplot. Some scientific stuff about brain next chapter. Consider it a P3 headcanon theory of mine. I'm still reading up about the concept so the whole theory would be discussed next chapter. Thanks for reading and tell me what you think^^


	6. Evoked Potential

**Chapter 6**

 **Evoked Potential**

"We won't discuss this matter anymore with you," Jun-san said, her voice steady but carried with it a cold edge Makoto has never never heard before from the gentle woman.

"I consider Makoto as my responsibility," Tatsuya-san added, the words unexpected. "I can't let him to suddenly being taken by the defendant's side. There's no knowing what will you do to him."

A chuckle. "You misunderstood me," Ikutsuki-san said, his expression still genial and friendly. "We just want to ensure his well-being, with a home we would soon built to accommodate the orphans we had found and the continuation of his study."

He continued, "After all, we had found something imminent in those children, something that can only be treated by the scientists affiliated to the Kirijo Group. He would have many friends with the same experience. Hmm... Let's call it a group healing. So, it is in everyone's best interest to entrust his custody to us."

Silence lingered within the atmosphere but Dr. Sonomura soon filled it with a question, averting the sensitive topic. "Something imminent?"

A wide grin spread across the brown-haired man's face. "Yes, this is the condition we had seen in the orphans we had found. For some reason, the orphans we took in showed an increased, above average rate in their Evoked Potential."

He diverted his attention to open the briefcase by his side and took out a thick bundle of papers. "I didn't truly had the time to tell you, but my specialty is somatosensory research. To put it simply, I research the part of the brain that lets someone feel things when the nerves are stimulated." Ikutsuki gave the bundle to the doctor.

Dr. Sonomura gave him an odd glance and Ikutsuki leaned forward, pointing and circling the picture of a specific brain part with his index finger. "Now, about the condition we had observed from the orphans we took in. Usually, Evoked Potential tests detect the slowing of nerve response caused by the damage on this part. This is dangerous because it could lead to a brain death."

They took in an abated breath.

Ikutsuki threw his gaze to the ceiling fan that whirred above them, recalling something. "If I'm not wrong... Please check Ergo Project Case Report page 68 to 103."

Tatsuya narrowed his eyes at the scientist but opened the said pages. His eyes speed-read the many cropped articles from various newspapers that immortalize the horror of a city that was suddenly filled with people who stared ahead emptily, their bodies and movements slack aside from breathing.

During that time, many countries offered their support to the city, sending their relief aids and professional help that also included field scientists, trying to crack the mystery. The Emperor himself had visited the accident site, to show his support to the redevelopment of the city and to ease the national grief.

But it proved to be useless.

"I'm sure that as people who had spent many times to be involved in this case, you all should've known that the attention that a large number of people with blank stares that littered the city has attracted. And-"

He made his point. "This, was what a minor brain death looks like."

"But that's impossible..." Dr. Sonomura whispered, eyes wide. "Something on such a large scale that could affect a city..."

"It's what happening right now, doctor. Even after two years has passed. They doesn't react to sight, sound, or touch. A prominent symptom that something is wrong with their somatosensory nerves. But then, there was a cycle where they would suddenly be cured of this condition. Even we the field scientists are lost regarding what to make of this phenomenon."

There was an amused quality to Ikutsuki's voice. "We call them 'The Lost'."

"It's not funny."

He waved it off with an easy smile. "I'd take it as as a saying that the range of my humor taste is of a very rare specimen." He took some pictures and spread them out on the table. The pictures looked like a charity act being carried out. Children with smudged faces and worn-out clothes were being treated to various meals. Another pictures shown them being seated in a large, spherical chair with many thin, almost transparent cables applied to their scalps.

"To make sure that those affected by the accident are healthy both physically and mentally, we had guaranteed that they're well-fed and we also did monthly check-ups like this. But then, the truly fascinating thing is that the check-up results showed that there's an increase in their brain activity, like what Dr. Sonomura had said." Ikutsuki explained bit by bit.

"And contrary to the somatosensory nerves failure in The Lost," he tapped the case report, on the particular page where a graphic chart has many slopes. Ikutsuki then flipped the next page and Dr. Sonomura took a deep breath. The chart has many spikes. "This is the Evoked Potential measurement result in those children."

"Why do you tell us about this?" Tatsuya asked, skeptical.

Ikutsuki sighed before he gave them his answer. "While it flatters me that you are willing to listen to a mere scientist, please don't treat me like an enemy," he smiled.

"No one wanted the accident to happen, not the victims, not even the Kirijo Group. No, God forbid. Rather, I think that the history of humankind itself has proved that a person could never fully understand one another. For me, I can't understand why you insist on being Makoto-kun's guardian even though we are willing to take responsibility of the error in our part. And for you,"

Ikutsuki swept his eyes across the living room and finally rested on the young officer. "You can't trust our good intention. But then again, we're on the different faction of the lawsuit, teehee. Get it? Suit _Fashion_ ," Ikutsuki cracked up while pointing at the different styles of his and Tatsuya's suits. Loose, double-breasted brown to sleek black business suit.

After a while, finally noticing that no one laughed with him, he wrote something in his small notebook and coughed once into his hand. "Eh, forgive the pun. It's a hobby of mine."

Dr. Sonomura sighed wearily, and with a nod from Jun, she said. "Please continue. Since it'll be a long talk, I and Jun will serve afternoon tea shortly."

The women left the vicinity, leaving the three alone in the living room.

"Ah, yes. Makoto-kun," hearing his name being called, Makoto looked up at the older man, hiding slightly behind Tatsuya-san's frame. A big hand landed on his shoulder.

"Yes... Ikutsuki-san?" he croaked. As if on cue, the man leaned forward, "You see, I'm so impressed with your acumen. Meeting you in person has exceeded the expectation I had about you. I knew your parents personally. I see that you are indeed their son."

A strange confusion settled on his chest. "You know my parents?"

Ikutsuki nodded happily, "Great people, those two. Oh! I have something from them. I feel that I have to give it to you no matter what since you're their only son, it's unfair that you have nothing to remember them by, right?" the boy kept his silence as Ikutsuki watched him picked at the stray thread that sprung out from the coach.

Ikutsuki asked to the orphaned boy. "Can we talk alone?"

"Makoto..." Tatsuya-san whispered softly and watched as myriad of emotions played on his eyes.

The boy nodded.

* * *

"Seeing you like this... It sadden me that your situation has become like this." Ikutsuki began, pocketing his hands as he observed the backyard. It was almost bare, carpeted only by the grass that might be mowed once a month.

He eyed Makoto, who had gazed down to the grass. "It was a error on our part. The responsibility falls to the Kirijo Group to mend the collateral damage, isn't it?"

Makoto whipped his head up, surprised to hear them coming from the mouth of someone related to the Kirijo Group but he kept his mouth set into a thin line, not saying anything.

"Are you not going to say anything?" the older man pouted, then his eyes shone as if he got a new idea. "Well, in that case, I have many stocks of story to tell you."

Ikutsuki grabbed the boy's thin hand and led him to the farther side of the backyard. The childish confusion on Makoto's face settled and he relaxed, slack against his.

"Hmm... I don't know if you ever heard this story, but this one is my favourite." He rubbed his palms together and found that Makoto's attention had focused to him.

"I also dabbled in classics, you know. This one was set during the period of Bronze Age. Oh, it was about 1260 to 1180 BC." Seeing that a understanding dawned on the child's eyes, Ikutsuki revised his opinion. The boy was intelligent.

"Long story short, it was about a lone human girl that destroyed two countries." He summarized. Makoto raised his eyebrows, trying to catch up. "Is she that powerful?"

Ikutsuki chuckled, "Nah, she just happens to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She had scores of suitors and her father was unwilling to choose one for fear the other suitors would deny the marriage and attack his kingdom."

Makoto's nose scrunched up. "That's boring."

"Hey! It's not my fault I'm a bad storyteller." Ikutsuki huffed, crossing his arms. "Where was I... Ah, yes, her father finally chose who got to be the groom that would be suitable to inherit his throne and to be wed to the most beautiful woman in the world."

But then.

"And maybe you've predicted this, but of course, someone abducted her. But I forgot his name, so let's just call him Mr. K. K for kidnap, teehee." Ikutsuki removed his glasses and wiped it with a soft cloth.

"A jealous Goddess punished Mr. K and sent him and the princess he kidnapped to a land in Egypt, where the gods replaced the princess with a cloud that resembled her. The myth that the princess being replaced seemed a fair deal, since Mr. K was wrong in the first place." Ikutsuki nodded sagely.

He continued. "And her supposed husband tried to recover her but they failed. A prophetess has warned that the girl would brought forth calamity in her wake, but you see, she was cursed to never be believed."

"And war happened. The end." Makoto finished with dully and got up.

"Ah, ah. Not yet. Quiz time, Makoto." The boy turned to him, confusion could be seen on his stoic face and Ikutsuki opened the briefcase, retrieving the last item in it. The cold metal fitted his palm.

"Who do you think is the greatest sinner?"

The boy seemed to think for a while before replying.

"...Mr. K, I think?"

Ikutsuki grinned and shoved the gun to Makoto's forehead.

"Wrong answer."

Thanatos clawed its hands on his face, over his cheeks and his heartbeats grew erratic as if trying to break free from its cage of flesh and bone. He felt a grin widening on a metal face and empty eyesockets.

"The answer is... It's better if the cause of the war itself doesn't exist.'

 **BANG!**

* * *

 **Author Note:  
**

Unbeta'ed. I'm kinda worried about the pacing *sigh*

Thanks for reading and tell me what you think^^


	7. Meltdown

**Author Note:**

This chapter might be a lot to take in, so read slowly. Trigger warning for child abuse and human experimentation. Other than that, please read and review^^

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

 **Meltdown**

He lolled his head to the side, the pain has ebbed away hours ago and Makoto willed his throat to swallow, not liking the aftertaste of iron and gunpowder around his teeth. It was too much like the ever-present existence of the dark want that he has tried to keep at bay.

It belonged to Thanatos, not him.

 _"_ _Yes, Suou-san. I'm forgetful, you see. I forgot call you earlier, but my appointment was rather time-sensitive."_

A beat of silence and Makoto imagined that his ears were ringing. He wanted to cover his ears, but the heavy bulge strapped around his arms were bothering him. No thick blanket to cover him up from head to toe, no screech of those black blobs, no soothing hum of power that makes his stomach churn with impossible glee.

 _"_ _...I'm sorry to hear that. But children with Makoto's history are notoriously hard to be placed. I've seen a lot like that during my interactions with the orphaned children here. I understand your concern."_

Time went a lot more slowly. But eventually, the agonizing cramp has lessened and disappeared altogether, so Makoto didn't have the pain to distract him anymore. But Makoto was good at waiting patiently, at doing nothing and holding his breath as he does so, else the blobs would notice him and tear through the room in desperate fix of pure _hunger._

 _"_ _I should've directed him to Dr. Sonomura's home after I spoke with him. But my duty called, officer. I trusted that Makoto would return to the clinic."_

As the hours drag on, he began to notice the lackluster of sundown's light they allowed in this small space, the bareness of the room. The only sound that followed the muted conversations around him –four people? Three people- was a clinical, monotone beep of something he has no name of. It was only there, a mere piece of plastic and electricity connected to him with a thin, transparent tube. Ah, he remembered now. They called it EEG-reading.

He heard a weary sigh. _"Makoto must've ran away, then. It's not surprising, orphans ran away all the time. I have the exactly same problem in my facility. Will you mobilize a search squad from your side? Yes? Then, we would like to extend our help."_

Makoto shivered, one that ran from the small of his back to his scalp. It alerted the machine, but not enough to give it more than a quick upward stroke, compared to the chart spikes hours ago. Those chart was the cause of why long shackles were replaced by a heavier strap, bright white room replaced by a room more oppressive than any sort of prison cell. They had called the result 'too dangerous to be placed with the other samples'. He wondered what does that meant.

Makoto let out a childish chuckle.

He learned that he was capable of feeling lonely, so as to not the sudden onslaught of seclusion affect him, he rocked his body back and forth, the chains that bound his feet jangling merrily. And if he closed his eyes, he could imagine for a brief flicker of time that it was the cold chains that bound the clear black and white of his guardian to him. Glistening armor enveloped it like a sturdy, well-worn coat that covered his ears from the sheer thrill of madness that was never there. A foreign, almost-alien blood that coursed through him, as natural as his own blood, enclosing him and warding him from anything, everything and nothing while only the green shaft of moonlight burned his skin alive. The chain protected him –from?

 _"_ _Suou-san, it wouldn't help our case as the defendant side if he went missing_ _suddenly_ _no matter how desperate we are, surely you can understand the logic. ...Yes, we will also mobilize our resources to aid you."_

But the flicker of his guardian was weak. Makoto tasted it in his veins, the parasitic bond latched on any semblance of power as it grew, grew and grew until the next time he could sought it out, coax it out from himself.

 _"_ _After all-"_

There were bolts applied to the metal door, along with a scanner that allowed people he didn't know in and out. Suddenly, his meager strength seeped away and left him scrambling for any sense of consciousness. He was too tired to fight the abrupt weakness but his enforced position kept him seated, so he only leaned his head forward, neck dangerously close to his knees.

 _"_ _-Two in harmony surpasses one in perfection. Good day, officer."  
_

And those bolts were drawn back, one at a time. A key turning counter-clockwise in the lock. A set of buttons were pushed. Someone unlocked the cell and pushed it open, the hinge groaned aloud from the lack of use.

Footsteps walked inside calmly and the lone fluorescent tube brightened the whole room, making him moan in temporarily blinding pain. A small laugh accompanied the pain and Makoto looked up slowly through the uncertain quality of hazy eyes. Ikutsuki stood in the doorway.

"Well, look who's up so early. Do you have any trouble sleeping?"

Resisting the urge to laugh, laugh and _laugh_ with unrestrained delight at finally having someone to plunge with into this claustrophobic cell, Makoto only allowed a small fraction of his grin to show. Ikutsuki kept his hands on his pockets as he circled around one of the only two chairs within the room, stroking the boy's head before he put pressures into the fragile shoulder. He felt the bones, the framework that incorporated calcium and collagen beneath those flesh, binding together under his fingers.

Ikutsuki still couldn't believe that this body was a vessel of one of the twelve Shadows that slipped through the grasp of the Kirijo Group.

He didn't anticipate such luck, and the thrill of this discovery has yet to escape his system. He was just there to eliminate the only living eye-witness, to kill the boy under his current guardians' noses. It was easy. It was as natural as breathing. People belittled him because he looked so harmless. Just a passing scientist from the Kirijo Group with an interest to preserve those orphans' freedom. What they didn't know was that he was as casual as lying as he would when he flicked surgery blade.

"Your guardians are scouring the city, looking for you. But I can't exactly tell him that you're my guest for now, right?"

The boy put up quite a fight back then, though. Not that it was unexpected. When he shoved the gun to Makoto's forehead, the real purpose of that motion was to induce the inflated Evoked Potential to come to life. To make him respond to the sight of a gun, the sound of full-barreled magazine, and the touch of cold metal of the gun.

He found out that the children affected by the explosion has the tendency of higher Evoked Potential chart, thus they had easier probability to develop a Persona in this early stage of childhood, as unstable as it was. Many had died even before he began the process of coaxing the Persona to the presence of reality. But those that survived has lower life expectancy before the Kirijo Group could use them.

Imagine Ikutsuki's surprise when he was faced with the tingling, exhilarating presence of a _Shadow._ A high-functioning Shadow, one that thrived from the boy's desperation to stay alive. One that tried to actively protects its vessel and kill him on sight rather than the animalistic need to tear the fragile body from inside, rendering the child insane. It was something that never happened before and he was fortunate to be able to subdue the berserk Shadow without any injury, an ability cultivated from monitoring many of the useless samples.

And he didn't have any intention to let this precious boy go.

It was amazing that such unassuming, fragile body held so much questions and answers. A breakthrough, even, if they could pry open the Pandora's Box without more mishaps. More samples became vegetative just yesterday, leaving them with only a quarter of the original subjects to work with. Some of them were not even in any condition to be useful. _This,_ Ikutsuki thought, will be different.

"And this time, it won't be another failure." He whispered, idly clenching and unclenching his fingers to test the elastic material of the safety gloves.

Humming merrily to himself, Ikutsuki set to work and put on the sterile white lab coat that was hung behind the door. His mood has improved considerably this week despite the setbacks on the sample quality. To find the original Shadow that escaped back then on one of the orphans they combed through was pure luck! He could count on top of his head that the probability was almost close to zero. With this, not only that he could prove his hypotheses but he could also apply the more turbulent process of assimilating the subject module to the Shadow, the part where he was stuck on because the former subjects always failed to deliver a satisfying result.

Reaching for the top drawer of the worktops, made of composite phenolic panel constructed by layering natural kraft paper saturated with phenolic resin that held up well and was resistant to stress impact, he pulled away a slim container and tucked it into his pocket before he returned to his valuable sample.

Ikutsuki frowned when he saw that the boy has his eyes closed, his features slack and unmarred. The scientist stopped in front of the boy and lifted his chin. When he was met with a slow, steady breath, he found out that the boy was unconscious again, with the rising heat of a fever. Aided with the tell-tale shiver that went though the sample's body and no sign of abrupt change in the sample, Ikutsuki concluded that he has weakened enough to fight. The boy was fortunate that he was too weak to be controlled by the Shadow.

Else, it would've hot-wired the boy.

The fascinating, vivid details came to the forefront of Ikutsuki's mind. Of witnessing something as unknown as a mass of negative emotions rampaged, wrestling the rein over a child's body as the sample convulsed and writhed in vain accompanied with involuntary muscle contractions. It was useless. By the time that the sample's eyes turned otherworldly golden, he knew that the Shadow has brain-fucked its new home. The first shrill, hysterical laugh would notify him that the Shadow has digged in and brute-force extraction was impossible. It has clawed its way into the command center of the sample, locking itself immovable from its spot. From that moment on, the sample was not a human child anymore.

It happened often enough with the newest batch of cohorts that Ikutsuki kept his Glock within easy reach of his hands.


	8. Theorem

**Author's Note:** Sorry for the wait! Enjoy! 8D **  
**

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

 **Theorem**

* * *

Shadows were nothing but a mass of uncontrollable blood lust and humanity's despair.

It was the ultimate conclusion Ikutsuki drew after he read many documents privy only to the eyes of select few. State secrets that were poured into confidential, priceless documents unearthed from their resting places for the sake of Kouetsu Kirijo's dream were rare finds even within the circle of knowledge-hungry scholars. Those obscure, unheard-of theories would surely cause a ground breaking mass panic should they become public knowledge, but it could be useful within his hands.

During the first few years of the development of Ergo Project, their team has compiled theories upon theories by many Shadow scientists before them for years, eventually finding a ground theory that Shadows were beings that changed constantly, fitting themselves in with humanity. They evolved, but their core remained the same.

And within those confidential documents, they found technologies now lost to this world. Things that his fellow scientists has done in the name of power and the bid for godhood.

Foolish.

One pitiful man tried to use a reality-altering machine to create a special space that allowed a matter within the machine to shift into another forms. The machine ended up sealing half of a city in an impenetrable bubble and the man would've succeeded if the system's core unit didn't disappear, causing the whole system to fail.

Another man tried to create a world without the original sin and being on the pinnacle of power, developed a method to temporarily seal a Persona and installed it into bipedal panzers co-developed by the NPA and Japan's Self Defense Force. The cockpit contained a nerve transplant device to connect the pilot's brain with the operating system of the panzers for enhanced synchronization.

They didn't know for what purpose did the panzer was made, but the ruined blueprint of X Series Robots showed that each one of them contained the firepower from M249 light machine gun and L16 81mm mortar. What made it so special was the "Muramasa Copies" they wielded on their right arms for sealing a Persona temporarily that suggested the purposes of X Series Robot's development were far beyond the normal riot control. The recorded use of X Series Robots needed a higher level of security clearance to be viewed, but Ikutsuki didn't need that data. He only needed the result.

Kirijo Group's latest ASW model, code name AIGIS was developed based on that ability, tinkered and modified for many months to pursue the ability to seal a Shadow in a bio-organic medium, albeit they can only produce the beta version. But Makoto Yuki... The first success of next-gen development that led to complete harness of Shadows was not something to be set free.

No, Ikutsuki won't let such thing to happen on his watch.

The only problem that posed a threat to his research was if the child was entrusted to the government system's care and thus presumably, the NPA. He didn't count on Officer Suou's personal involvement with the sample because he thought that no one would notice a mere child with difficult home placement. Sure, the child was important as the key witness, but he has outlived his usefulness in the eyes of the law. An orphanage would've been the only way to wash their hands off him.

The child would've been impossible to find what with the extra protection NPA bundled the child with, if not for the memory bank of the remnant of their last functioning ASW that was also destroyed in the fight. Ikutsuki was lucky that at least the head and the Papillon Heart were still intact.

It truly was a pity that the memory bank needed to be deleted completely in case the court and those foolish people that called themselves as the important government body decided that they have to view the physical evidence.

The recorded battle data was awe-inspiring. To see that their latest and strongest Seventh Generation ASW model was able to last six minutes and five seconds against a berserk, rampant Shadow was something to be proud of.

It was a success that his predecessors were unable to do, after all.

* * *

Ikutsuki refocused his attention and pushed a small communication device connected to the unconscious sample's bed.

"Prepare the Operating Theater 3, I'm bringing the subject in."

Ikutsuki received a 'Yes, sir.' from the other side of the communication device and let his feet guided him to the bedside. He gripped the sturdy metal that bordered Makoto's bed and pushed it out from the dreary room to enter the sterilized Operating Theater 3. The high-ended room was equipped to the brim with the latest technology, small selection of medical knives was stowed in a metal container and a pair of rubber gloves already sat waiting for him on top of the operating bed. Ikutsuki pulled on the necessities and hauled the unconscious child to the operating bed.

It was good that the child was already unconscious, else he'd need to administer stronger anesthesia due to the sample's apparent distress. Ikutsuki has also ordered the guards to not feed the sample since last night, to nil the sample by mouth to reduce the risk of stomach contents entering the lungs during and after the operation.

"I will find out what you hide from me, Makoto." Ikutsuki said as he took out a small tube of liquid from his pocket and picked one of the syringe.

The position of the metal bed granted him full access to the child's brain, elevated at 30 degrees with the head in a middle line. Ikutsuki mixed the anesthesia with vasoconstrictor solution, flicking the combined liquid three times before injecting it to the child's scalp.

As Makoto's consciousness entered a deeper sleep, Ikutsuki traced the tip of his surgical blade to the middle part of the skull with a precise, clinical care and pressed it gently around the scalp where the cerebral cortex was located. He was confident in his skill, but it has been days since he last slept and they couldn't afford to lose more promising subjects. So, with a clear mind, he began the first cut and started the operation.

He extended the light incision to the lower part of the skull, making the cut approximately the length of his palm to ensure that he has enough room to work in. After the straight line was formed, he replaced the thin blade with a sturdier bone-saw. The bone-saw broke through the scalp and the first drop of blood touched the elastic material of his medical gloves.

He glanced at the monitor that showed the boy's vital signs and only after the subject's vitals were stable enough to continue did he ripped open the child's scalp on the incised flap of the loose connective tissues. Without looking, he reached for the wet gauze on the small table next to him and applied it to the bleeding layer, renewing it with another dry gauze.

It was almost impossible to do craniotomy alone, but lack of human resources and two years of frantic emergency situations made him used to do it. It will be another few years before the wound over the explosion healed and more interested scientists to join in but until then...

He had to do it alone.

After the periosteum opened up to him, Ikutsuki peeled the soft, dense layer which function was to protect the bone that separated him and the brain beneath his curious hands. But before he drilled the skull bone, he recalled the image from the CT scan and correctly pinpointed the exact location of the part of the subject's brain that he needed to see. Nodding to himself, Ikutsuki grasped the Hudson's Brace with steady hands and pressed the sharp tip and hand-drilled the delicate bone.

The child convulsed.

Not enough anesthetic, then. He paused on drilling his way into his precious sample's brain and searched the table for a spare syringe with gauge needle, finding the 27-gauge directly next to the discarded bloody bone-saw. He flicked the 10 ml prepared tube of lidocaine with epinephrine and injected the liquid slowly onto the sample's scalp, feeling the body sagged and relaxed under his fingers as the pupils of those exquisite silver eyes dilated as the anesthesia worked itself into the child's system.

He hand-drilled the skull, feeling the off-white bone gave in and grinning as the tiny crack spread around, revealing the treasure hidden beneath it. Carefully, slowly, Ikutsuki made more burr holes spanning around the top middle of the sample's brain at specific points, forming an uneven circle if someone traced the dots.

Then, he passed a sharp metallic wire stronger than steel and thinner than a piece of hair through two out of the three holes. Gripping the ends of the wire, he moved the wire to and fro like a saw and after a few patient minutes, the first bone line was cut.

Ikutsuki reapplied the same process to the third burr hole, sure fingers smoothly cutting open another line. And after he was done, Ikutsuki attached to holes to each other, lifting the bone flap with relative ease and placed it in a sterile drape. He reached the tabula interna without damaging the dura matter and he held out a thrilled breath.

After all, the first step of human evolution was right beneath his fingers.

The living brain was very soft, with gel-like consistency similar to tofu. He had touched, held and examined many dissected brains during his experience as an avid Shadow scientist, as a guiding torch that led humanity to the era of foreknowledge. He would become humanity's Prometheus. And this... This was indelible.

Ikutsuki shivered, resisting the urge to slice open the pinkish white organ. The strong, almost-unbearable urge to glide the tip of surgery blade to the innumerable lines and grooves and swirls presented in front of his eyes like rivulets of tiny rivers with his own hands.

But instead, he reverently traced the red-tinged cerebral cortex. Ikutsuki's careful fingers felt the disquiet thrum of foreign power within the child's body, struggling to come out. To think that a Shadow, a mass of negative emotions exists directly beneath his fingers, protected only by fragile bones and flesh was a fascinating thought.

Oh, the things he could do once he discovered the final puzzle piece of how to harness the Shadows...

Wasn't it fated that the child who witnessed the fall of Ergo Project to be the one who could salvage it? Ikutsuki could redo everything from scratch once he coax the Shadow out into the realm of consciousness.

So he did, and took out a shimmering bluish-white Plume of Dusk.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

*cringe* Sorry for the delay, the difficulty level of writing this chapter is on Maniac. I even read up on medical journal. No kidding. The whole craniotomy process and medical mumbo jumbo are pretty much accurate and I'm happy with the result. Thanks for reading^^

Continue?


	9. Sanctuary

**Author's Note:** It's been a month, sorry *kowtows*

* * *

 **Chapter 9**

 **Sanctuary**

* * *

Its last memory was of carnage.

This empty, wavering world was made anew by drowning everything in a sea of blood. The electrifying hum of raw destructive strength was pure ecstasy as entrails and limbs were forcefully separated from their vessels, brutally broken bodies wearing white coats laid in the land nourished with the blood of its people.

The Shadows were devouring each other, drawn and enticed by the exhilarating scent of unrestrainable fear and panic that permeated the air. But it was stronger, more beastly than anything. It devoured, devoured and devoured all that stood in its path to monopoly the carnage until it was the lone victor, a monstrous Shadow bathed in the black ichor of its kin.

It felt the ugly emotions settling deep within its core as its body was filled with the power and the rightness of the bloodlust, the repeating echo to trample on everything and nothing. The puny figures around it trembled, faces contorting into a mindless haze of survival instinct when the full span of its wings broke free and cast the unholy darkness that yearned sacrifices to be placed upon its altar.

There was a savage contentment and strength at its roar, pulling the weak-willed humans into its embrace and wrapping its relentless hold on their hearts, to paralyze them and to stake its existence as the master of their demise.

The symphony of humanity's ghastly wail was an incomparable sound that accompanied the easy sweep of its blade as their heads rolled away, splatting red liquid to paint a macabre of the devil. Its blade sliced through the warm flesh and bones, releasing a delicious amount of final despair as it savoured the sweet taste of their broken souls.

One human fought desperately, the sunken face etched into a foolish will to live and its scarlet blade was parched with hunger. The scent of the wispy human's soul became tastier with each second, feeding the human's blood with something that was especially favoured by its kin.

Denying death.

The human's coat was no longer a pristine white as the man took out something from his pocket, pressing something as the human yelled out and fought.

But even at its weakest, it was still mightier as a small flick of its blade sent the human flying, the back of the human's head left a red trail on its descend. It felt the fragile human bones snapped, heard the strangled sigh as the black pupils of his eyes tilted upward, finally gave out.

This was what had become of the carnage.

The carnage was the most hideously beautiful sight of the world it has seen in ages since it has started existing so many decades ago, painting the night in red.

And when a mere metal scrap put an end to its vision, the night marked the emerald taint on the moon and the silver hue of a weak human with the passing of an ancient being that faded with all that was left in the graveyard of blood, drawing everything in silence.

* * *

It was in a strange kind of half-sleep, the next moment it opened its golden eyes.

This, in many ways, was the same as it once was to sleep within the darkest recess of humanity's sea of soul. To let its power crawl into its skin and blade, invigorating its massive body.

But now, its overtaxed body was sluggish, immobile as its eyes took in the small, fragile human fingers that cradled its head. It grinned as the human child's scent reached its senses, so putrid with both impurity and innocence.

Without pause, it devoured the child's subconsciousness and mingled its will with the child's, marking the silver eyes with golden rings and drawing strength to its form as the child closed his eyes.

And when it opened its eyes again, the room they were in has changed.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again, until the child's eyes slowly turned impassive, dead like its kin.

The shredded curtain and the destroyed wooden desk were around them. Torn bedspread whispered softly as the human child shifted closer to it, laying down on its immobile feet and curling up, sleeping as his front side faced the Shadow.

It materialized till the midnight ended, its feet turned into black ichor as it dissipated slowly. But on the last few seconds before it disappeared, the child opened his dead eyes and said something, the voice faint and weak.

 _You didn't want me to die, Thanatos?_

The body was smaller than the last time it opened its eyes, but his scent has changed so completely that the human smelled like a Shadow himself.

The next time, it tipped its face to the green-tinted sky as Mother Nyx breathed Her power through its skin. Even though it has gained enough strength to expand its wings, it still stood there silently beside the child, lest the weak Shadows would make the child their prey.

Lately, the thick Shadow-like scent on the human child has blurred, uncertain. There was a faint thread that intertwined the child's soul to warm touch and laughter as time passed outside the Shadow's comprehension. The thread stabilized their connection where it was chaotically disassembled between them, hints of light returning to the human child's eyes.

The child's soul has a more delectable taste than before.

The Shadow has a burning need to touch, to assimilate itself into the fragile bones under the child's skin. But it was impossible for a prison of transient flesh to take on everything. Otherwise, the flesh would be tainted even with the barest exposure of its touch, and everything would collapse.

But then-

-It could feel the connection, as if everything was jarred in something so forcefully violent that it would scorch the mind apart. The union was nearly parasitic in nature, awakening the Shadow's power as it licked the new feeling of being reborn in a sanctuary. The power transcended the taste from when it opened its eyes for the first time and it could spread itself further inside the human's body.

It did not wish for such a thing.

Shadows were a part of humanity. Shadows under the reign of Death were originally fragments of Life but the humans linked them as omens of physical death while in reality, it was humanity's despair who decided it so. If humanity wished for Death, it was its duty to fulfill it.

Was it not the deepest wish of the humans who purposefully collected them?

But to the Shadow, there was only one thing that was important, and that one thing was its vessel's life. Although the rest of its massive body was thrumming with the desire to destroy everything, the chains that joined its coffin-like wings together were stretched taut furiously, feverishly, binding its awakened strength to the human child, trying to preserve the drained life that cocooned it.

Enduring the sudden collapse of the human child's body was not a problem for the Shadow –it was not a weak entity- but the child was a mere human. His flesh could be easily shredded, his heartbeat faint. Their joined fragments could keep the human alive long enough for the Shadow to take possession, for the assimilation to be completed.

But the Shadow wouldn't have enough strength to sustain them both, being an incomplete Shadow as it was. It wouldn't be able to emerge but the human's life was hanging by a thin spider's thread. It would have to take lives drawn from other sources to survive.

Voices and visions entered its senses, humans clamouring around the room it was in. The humans showed faces of absolute astonishment and rotten greed, charging the air with a sickening sense of satisfaction.

And it was when the Shadow felt something foreign, inflaming the course of its body with an unnamed desire. To its eyes, the bleary room lost its focus, becoming dark and staining it with something that grew harsher. The jeering and feverish voracity around it fueled the power that pulsed within.

Rage.

Taken over, the emotion continued to rise within it, within the Shadow that the human child called as Thanatos. A Death God whose vessel has been wronged so violently that his presence grew fainter by each moment even as it tried to bind the human child to it.

How dare they, those disgusting humans, so powerless and weak who thought that they could replace god, so ignorant and foolish, thinking themselves as rulers of the world and-

-A feral grin was etched in its formless figure, its metal mouth stretched wide.

It cared little about how the miserable humans who never stopped wishing for Death could drawn the Shadow out from the human child's soul, but vibrant human lives were the source of boundless energy.

The Shadow will drain them all within inches of their lives, make them pay and suffer because its vessel was all that has ever mattered, all that ever will. Filling the room with screams of agony and pain to replace the silence as the Shadow ate, human's fragile legs no match for its blade. Shouts became the prelude as it swung its blade sideway.

"S-Save me!"

It heeded no one.

"It went berserk! Kill the sample!"

Ragged men swarmed the Shadow but its grin only widen as the scent of bloodbath nourished its strength. It roared savagely, planting fear of the unknown within the hearts of weaklings.

"Cut the sample's oxygen supply!"

It towered over the humans, attacking everything that came close with the ferocity of a beast. The Shadow wiped out the incoming force relentlessly, some of the blood landed on its vessel's clothing. The room became a one-sided battlefield.

But when its enemies were reduced only to a lone human wrapped in a brown coat, its strength were gone suddenly. Its vessel's harsh breathing resounded through the dark room as its enemy let out a crazed laughter.

And Thanatos was forcefully cut off from its vessel's subconsciousness.


	10. Break

**Author's Note:**

Four months since last updated... *wince* I'd be lucky if anyone's still around to read this UwU Didn't think it'll continue, do ya? Now I have a whole folder of story ideas and notes and reference pictures dedicated solely for this fic and some of the plot points has changed a lot from the first time I planned it out. I'm obsessed and I love unhinged Ikutsuki.

* * *

 **Chapter 10**

 **Break**

* * *

 _Drip._

 _Drip._

 _Drip._

The sound of fallen droplets that kissed the floor drenched in bloodbath and severed entrails so intimately was loud against the maddening quiet. Half of the lights were smashed without a care and some of the broken remainder flashed on and off from time to time, casting the trashed room with alternating light and dark. It was enough to drive a sane man crazed with unbidden paranoia that the next time the lights went on, _something_ would appear in front of their eyes where there was nothing before.

Clean, sharp smell of surgical isopropyl alcohol was intense, masking the rusty tang of fresh blood underneath the acidic bodily fluid as if it was a rite of ablution. The air conditioner stopped working halfway, further saturating the sealed room with a scent so pungent and unbearable from the mixed liquid, tainting the atmosphere with vengeful malice.

Freshly mangled corpses were everywhere. A half of a woman was staring blankly at Ikutsuki, seemingly unaware that her candle of life has been snuffed out so suddenly. Her other half was sprawled across the room, where a guard's crushed hand was twisted beneath her. All of Ikutsuki's colleagues were already pieces of incomplete corpses, the one-sided annihilation was done in frightening fury and uncontrollable quest for blood before Ikutsuki could cut the Shadow off from the sample forcefully.

Shattered glass shards that littered the floor reflected the flickering lights eerily, crunching soundly beneath the soles of Ikutsuki's shoes as he paced around uncaring of the glass and the scarlet liquid that covered his face and coat completely. His teeth gnashed irritatingly on his knuckles until his tongue tasted his own blood, messy brown hair clenched around shivering fingers as he pulled harshly.

The sample's head was still cracked open, pinkish brain matter exposed to the eyes of the world as he paced. The child's breathing was ragged and harsher after each second passed, but it was nothing he couldn't fix after he was finished with his mind's palace. He needed to make sense of what he just witnessed. He needed to clear his head to use the clear logic he so prized. He needed to take everything apart and rebuild the pieces until everything fit into his palms.

In one hand, he has succeeded in proving his point that a sample with potentials that exceeded expectation could tap open the core of their sea of soul, something he found out after continuous late nights and sleepless days trying to reveal the mysteries of Plume of Dusk that Kouetsu Kirijo found on his travels. That was how his predecessors created the ASWs as substitutional suppression force that copied the abilities of X Series Robots, strong enough to rival the raw strength of the Shadows.

It was a pity there was a possibility that one's sea of soul was linked to the psychological state of mind and the wholeness of the person, if the rising death in children that the Kirijo Group took in and the violent reaction of the Shadow that nestled within the mind of Sample Makoto were any indication.

His name would go down in history as the first person who found the way to coax the presence of latent Shadows, something he was sure any human had, to the surface of the world where researchers could, in time, use the power for the greater good. Cracking open the barrier between the physical vessel of human's psyche and the sea of soul was the key. The sea of soul was buried too deep, protected by too many layers that formed the human brain before the conduit could be touched by his curious fingers.

Ikutsuki was hoping against hope that the direct contact between the barrier of the sea of soul and Plume of Dusk could bring out the darkness of the Shadow to the surface, break through the existing barrier or limitation which would, in turn, cut off its parasitic link to its vessel or make it instinctually hijack the human host in its mission to acquire a solid, permanent form. It would destroy any semblance of human thoughts and behaviour, he could even call it no longer a human but with something as foreign as a Shadow, he could've care less.

What he didn't factor in was the small, miniscule chance that the Shadow would be bonded to its weak, puny human vessel.

The trigger could be anything, but it has never happened before. When he unearthed his memories of the sealed documents that recorded the attempt of a man to create a system that could enveloped and overturned reality, there was a case where a sickly girl suddenly changed into her idealized self, but there was never a predecessor where the human vessel could be naturally bonded to the Shadow, even though it might be a mere coincidence. He would know, because he has repeatedly tried to awaken artificial Persona Users with a near-impossible percentage of compatibility.

He wanted to know more, to understand more. Any other researcher would agree with him, but it was possible that this precious sample wouldn't survive the next week. It was already doomed from the beginning because each of the dissected samples never lived through the week after the operation. But once he presented the results of his dedication and hard work to lines of people who were willing to make a tribute to the possibly most important era of humanity, he would never be lacking in samples even if his first successful batch broke down.

Ikutsuki couldn't stay here, though. He would need bigger operating theater with more sophisticated tools to glean what he could before the sample decided to die. He has a friend in underground Tokyo who worked at a university hospital who owed him a hefty debt, so Ikutsuki made his mind and made a move to approach his precious sample.

The boy was already semi-conscious as Ikutsuki fixed the oxygen mask's position on that small face. No doubt that it was quite an ordeal to have the Shadow who bonded him to be ripped out from his subconsciousness would be taxing enough to woke him up. His sample tried to look at him, but the boy's gaze kept unfocusing as the golden rings on his pupils melt back into silver, another discovery Ikutsuki learnt about this phenomena.

"Can you go back to sleep for me, Makoto?" he whispered against the silence. Fat drops of tears fell on the boy's cheek as he convulsed quietly, head lolling to one side as confusion marred the young face.

Slow breath puffed out from the boy's nose, fogging the mask as Ikutsuki examined the open wound. His precious sample blacked out again when he looked up at the boy again, sleeping so peacefully in the loving cradle of Hypnos. Satisfied that the boy wouldn't move around fretfully, he left the messy operating table as Ikutsuki walked away to grab a few suturing set from his colleagues that was salvageable from the total carnage.

"Aha!" Grinning, he pulled open a suturing set from one of his colleagues pockets. Not that they would need it anymore, though.

The sample was deep in induced sleep, and Ikutsuki used the moment to close the wound quickly. He replaced the bone flap and the incised scalp carefully, working through them clinically before he cleaned the needles with rubbing alcohol.

Needles penetrated the soft flesh that gave under Ikutsuki's hands, passing deep into the dermis as he held the needle vertically and longitudinally to the needle holder. It exited the skin from the edge of the wound and reentered on the same side lateral to the exit point. Ikutsuki worked quickly, humming as he relaxed through the familiar procedure. Ikutsuki finished suturing the wound in mere minutes, now cleaning the scalp gently with a sterile gauze to keep it dry.

Pleased with his work, Ikutsuki left the boy to his sleep as he called his friend in Tokyo. He got the confirmation he expected and five minutes later, Ikutsuki had put the sample into the back seat of one of the laboratory's spare cars. He released the brake and drove unhurriedly onto the busy city road, passing a few security patrol cars on his way.

From the way that those police cars has yet to surround the area near the laboratory, it was clear that the news of the carnage didn't reach them yet. Of course, the Kirijo HQ knew about it, but they would just think that it was another one of the laboratory's failed experiments.

He glanced through the rear-view mirror to look at the boy as the car came to a stop as the traffic light changed into red, and saw that blood was starting to pool around the boy's head, probably from the cut on the scalp he hadn't noticed before. Ikutsuki sighed and shook his head, he had to redo the suture again after he arrived at his friend's laboratory.

But before the light turned green, his eyes stared at his cell phone on the passenger seat, which had begun ringing rhythmically. Ikutsuki hadn't moved as it rang once, twice, thrice. He picked it up on the fourth chime, holding it up to his ear.

"Yes, officer? Can I help you?"

Tatsuya Suou's annoying voice was registered through the speaker, breaking his good mood. _"Doctor, do you have any news from your end?"_

"No, not yet. Our resources has been combing through the city and the neighbor cities. The other Kirijo Group's branch is also moving to find Makoto." Half truth was better than a complete lie, Ikutsuki decided. It was true that new president was scrambling to find the only witness with all the resource Kirijo Group had, as their side would be jeopardized so greatly by Makoto's disappearance. Ikutsuki just forgot that he hadn't report about the little guest at his lab, that's all.

The other was silent, sighing frustratedly before the officer replied morosely. _"Thank you for your cooperation, Doctor. Please contact us when you find anything."_

Funny, the man decided to use the word 'when' rather than 'if'. What a hopeful young man. He should've known better than to mix personal feelings into work.

"Alright, you can count on me." Ikutsuki glanced over at his bleeding guest, deciding to humour his caller. "When I find him, he'll be safe with me. Thank you, bye."

Ikutsuki hung up the phone and drove to the empty highway-

And his gaze locked with Tatsuya Suou's bronze eyes.


End file.
